WASHINGTON – The effort to bail out the Big Three automakers stalled, largely, over a battle over union members’ sky-high benefits and wages – which are nearly double what nonunion auto workers take home.

Foreign carmakers with US plants pay their workers about $49 per hour in wages and benefits, according to industry statistics, while US manufacturers pay more than $70 per.

With salaries only slightly higher at the US automakers, the much bigger difference is in the benefits – the so-called legacy costs that are paid to retirees.

Foreign carmakers, who only in recent years settled in the less expensive Southern states, pay out about $3 per worker in retirement benefits, the US firms more than five times that in legacy costs.